1. Straight to the point: What the heck happened in the first half?
The first 20 minutes of Sunday's Colgate game were by far, the worst this season and arguably the worst half of basketball for this team since last year's second half against Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. Rutgers was outplayed in every aspect and — as more than one player admitted after the game — the team wasn't ready to play. That's a real indictment on this team if — in spite of not coming out to play — they can't at least muster a tie at half against a winless team from the Patriot Leage. And this wasn't a first half where the underdog comes out, shoots 60 percent and leads by 10 at half. No, Colgate only shot 44.1 percent in the first half — good, but by no means great. They dominated in points in the paints, 14-4. (This despite having no starter taller than 6-6.) There was no discipline, no defense and minimal effort and it showed. Rutgers should consider itself lucky that Colgate isn't a better shooting team — they had plenty of open looks that didn't drop — because that 5-point deficit could have easily been 10.

2. Thought this type of thing was behind this program? Why does it keep popping up?
That's the $64,000 question, folks. Sophomore guard Mike Rosario told me afterwards that he was "annoyed" that Rutgers keeps coming out flat for games and/or halves. Coming into the Colgate game, Rutgers had three straight games where they played well in the first half, but came out lifeless after halftime. But in some respects, that's not the worst thing in the world since the opposition makes adjustments at halftime to counteract what Rutgers is doing. You don't like to see it — and the elite teams in the country almost never do it — but at least it can be explained away that way. Coming out flat to start a game is mind-boggling. Especially against a team that was 0-7 and missing its second-best player — Westfield native Mike Venezia. In the offseason, this team talked about how they thought they could pick off some big-time games because teams will see them and think, "Oh that's a win, it's only Rutgers." Well, that's never going to happen if they keep having that same mentality against the lesser teams on its own schedule.

3. So, was there anything good that came out of that game?
Dane Miller is going to be a player for this team. Seven games into this season, he is by far the most advanced player on the roster that wasn't playing with the team last year. He's long, athletic and is a more skilled passer than most people realize. His 15 points were a career high and he also pulled down eight rebounds. Rosario said afterwards that he's not even polished yet and doesn't know what exactly he's capable of. Even though he already played well against Florida in the Legends Classic tournament, you'd like to see how he does night in and night out against top-notch competition. But here's an indication of where he stands right now: he supplanted Patrick Jackson as a starter at the beginning of the second half against Colgate.

GAME BALLSGreg Echenique (19 pts., 8 reb., 2 blk.): After having a forgettable weekend in Atlantic City last week, Echenique has been a load for Rutgers the last two games. The result? 40 points, 18 rebounds.Dane Miller (15 pts., 8 reb., 3 blk.): The freshman continues to impress, dropping a career-high against the Raiders. He was so good in the first half, that Hill started him instead of Jackson.Kyle Roemer (21 pts., 10 reb.): Colgate's guard looks like an extra from "The O.C.," but he's was anything but an extra Sunday. Rutgers had no answers for Roemer, who continually pulled up and dropped shots on the Scarlet Knights all afternoon long.

SUICIDESRutgers coach Fred Hill: The players said afterwards that they ready for the start of the game. While that's half on them, it's also got to be half on the coach. A loss to a team like Colgate would have killed any morale for this team and program.James Beatty (6 pts., 4 reb., 2 ast.): This is really just for one play in the first half when Rutgers was staring at a deepening hole. On an uncontested fast-break that would have stopped the bleeding, Beatty made the foolish decision to try and fancy behind-the-back pass. It went behind Jonathan Mitchell and into the Colgate bench. Just a boneheaded decision.Rutgers transition game: So Colgate turns the ball over 15 times, but Rutgers can only get six points off of them? Turnovers for a team like Colgate should be a death-knell. Rutgers just didn't make them pay for doing so.

NEWS, NOTES AND QUOTESThe News
The reason that guard Mike Rosario didn't start Sunday's game was that he was nursing a bruised left shin. The sophomore injured it during the second half of the Princeton game on Thursday night. It was the first time that Rosario wasn't in the starting lineup in his collegiate career. He entered midway through the first half and scored 14 points.

Attendance at the RAC continues to be an issue. The listed crowd at Rutgers-Colgate was 4,226. However, the eye count inside the building indicated far less that that. An estimation would put the number between 1,500-2,200. But once again the student section was devoid of students. In fact, approximately 100 Colgate fans took up residency in the student section Sunday afternoon.

The NotesOne good piece of news that came out Rutgers' week was that Greg Echenique was named to the Big East's honor roll. He averaged 20 points and 9.5 rebounds this week. ... Speaking of Echenique's hot streak, the big man has been money from the free-throw line as of late. Since starting the year 3-of-12 from the line, Echenique has gone 29-of-32 from the charity stripe. In fact the last two games against Princeton and Colgate, he had gotten to the free-throw line 22 times. ... The Scarlet Knights managed to stay out of foul trouble Sunday against Colgate, only picking up 13 fouls, eight of which came in the second half. ... Raiders guard Kyle Roemer and forward Yaw Gyawu became the seventh and eighth players to score double-digits against Rutgers. ... Rutgers center Hamady Ndiaye's four blocks was the 40th time in his career that he blocked three or more shots.

The Quotes
"It's hard to prepare for a team in two days. There's not much you can do, you've just got to try and make the best of it. But we're going to have to do it again for Wednesday."
-- ECHENIQUE on the difficultly a preparing for a quick turn-around

"When we're playing against opponents that we have the edge over, as far as being a stronger team in weight and athleticism that we have on our team — I think a lot of guys look at it as, 'We've got the edge on this team.' ... Sometimes when you do that, it doesn't go that way all the time and it gives teams a lot of hope. And that's what we did -- we gave them a lot of hope."
-- ROSARIO on Rutgers' tendency to overlook teams

"I would have preferred to sit Mike the whole game. He bruised his shin in the last game. He missed one day of practice and it was a quick turnaround. I would have like to have gotten Mo (Muhamed Hasani) more minutes. Obviously it was an opportunity for JB (James Beatty) to get some extended minutes and Mike Coburn as well. We would have like to have kept him out the whole game, but we told him to be ready if we needed him and obviously we were much better with him on the floor."
-- HILL on his desire to have rested Rosario Sunday afternoon

"At halftime we got booed. I never got booed at home ever, anywhere. Ever. So I knew we had to come out and play."
-- MILLER on the crowd's reaction at halftime

"It was pretty bad. Coaches were upset. There was some yelling and screaming. They were trying to get us pumped to come out in the second half and be ready."
-- ECHENIQUE on what happened at halftime during Sunday's game

RIDICULOUS STAT OF THE GAME3
That's the number of shots that Rutgers made Sunday afternoon from beyond the arc on the right side. In the first half, the Scarlet Knights went an abysmal 1-for-9 from the right side and then in the second half, went 2-of-6.